prove that, in the Apocalypse, great and important truths are concealed under striking and apposite representations:' but we want discernment to discover the appositeness of these hieroglyphical pictures to the objects said to be represented by them. We cannot be of the opinion of those who think that St. Peter alluded to the Revelation by his "more sure word of prophecy."

That we may give our readers a specimen of Mr. B.'s mode of commenting on this confessedly obscure book, we shall extract his illustration of the 2d part of the B.6xagov, or Little Book, containing a description of what is termed a great wonder in heaven, viz. "a woman clothed with the sun," &c. (chap. xii. 1.)

We have here a representation of Christianity by her proper symbols, from her first appearance, throughout her present militant state. Her struggles prior to her obtaining a settlement are represented by her labour-pains, and her more settled state by her bringing forth a man child and the attempts of the Devil, under each period, to prevent the increase of Christianity, by the Dragon watching her in her labour, and ready to destroy the child, as soon as she should be delivered. But in the end his attempt was frustrated; for the woman was secured by flight, and her child was taken up to the throne of God: or in other words, the church continued, though in a state of distress and persecution, and its members were safe under the divine protection. We find these images before introduced in the prophesy of Isaiah; but with this difference, then the sudden increase of Christianity is prefigured by an easy birth. Before she travailed, she brought forth, before her pain came she was delivered of a man child." Isaiah, lxvi. 7, 8. And again, "As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children:" but here, ere she brought forth her man child, she cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered: which expressed those oppositions and difficulties, which the church endured under her ten persecutions. She is described as clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The twelve stars so visibly allude to the doctrine of the twelve apostles, with which the church is irradiated, that it is reasonable to interpret the sun as meaning the sun of righteousness, the head of the church, Jesus Christ, her author and founder. But concerning the moon we are not so well agreed, whether we should understand this of the Jewish ceremonies, or, it may be, of all varying sublunary things, with Mede; or with Daubuz, of the Holy Ghost. Yet it may perhaps be worth our observation to remember, that this woman, thus glorious in her apparel, is stationed in heaven; and the moon in respect of her situation is placed under her feet, as in the Apotheosis of Virgil's Eclogue:

"Sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera Daphnis."

And all this emblematically represents her conspicuous exalted state, and shews her to be, what our Saviour called his disciples in one place (Matt. v. 14) and terms himself in another, (John viii. 12.) To qus T8 xogue: and as the greater light rules the day, and the lesser

governs

governs the night, (Gen. i. 16. Ps. cxxxvi. 9) we are to understand that no part of the earth at any season is to be entirely deprived of her light.'

What could induce any person to interpret the moon to signify the Holy Spirit, we are at a loss to conjecture.

Mr. B. undertakes to shew that by Babylon is meant, not Rome, but Constantinople; (which as well as Rome is erected on seven hills;) and that the Man of Sin does not sig nify an individual, but the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem, whose conduct answered the two characters by which the Man of Sin was to be discriminated. We shall not, however, discuss the soundness of this conjecture, but shall dismiss Mr. B.'s Dissertationes Apocalyptice with lamenting that he should have laboured to so little purpose. We trust that future commentators, before they put on their Apocalyptic spectacles, will consider the impenetrable darkness in which this book has been always enveloped; and will resolve to blot no more paper with Dissertations, until some data be obtained, and some solid principles of interpretation are established.

The first tract in the second volume is Mr. Bingham's Vindication of the doctrine and liturgy of the Church of England, in answer to Mr. Lindsay's Apology, published in 1774, and our opinion of which was given in M. R. Vol. li. p. 296.

Пauλos Ev Anvas, or Paul at Athens, is the subject of the next Essay, which was written during the author's confinement at Bath, 1782, under a severe paralytic stroke. Here Mr. B. explains the character of the Athenians, and the Apostle's admirable address in defending himself before the Areopagus; neither of which appears in our version of Acts xvii :

To say that "all the Athenians, and strangers which were there, spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing," is to make them arrant gossips, a weak idle useless people. And to begin telling his judges, they were "too superstitious," does not seem reconcilable to that address, which runs through his whole Apology.

Were any historian to say that in the reign of Charles the Second a society was incorporated which occasionally holds its meetings even to this day; and when they get together they do nothing else but spend their time in telling or hearing some new thing; it would impress on the reader's mind a very humiliating idea of the Royal So. ciety. But were it said, that some of the first and most learned men of the kingdom, who seeing the utility of experimental philosophy, first privately among themselves, and afterwards more publicly proceeded in making several useful discoveries, after the Restoration obtained the king's charter of incorporation, and to this day support the character of the Royal Society; it would be an imperfect, but much more candid, representation of that respectable body of learned

Bb 4

men.

men. Yet, if you cast your eye over their Transactions, and observe that they admit foreigners amongst them, you will be apt to say Пales, και οι επιδημενιες ξενοι, εις εδεν έτερον ευκαιρων η λεξειν τι και ακούειν καινότερον. I take there to be something similar in the case before us. Athens was the place whither the youth resorted for education; and the philosophers for the instruction of others. It was the seat of science; and philosophy in all its branches was cultivated and improved. Well therefore might it be said that not only the citizens of Athens, but didnμsvis evo, they who resorted thither, employed a principal part of their time (or, as Scapula renders it, "in nullâ re aliâ otium suum consumebant") in hearing and reporting things worthy of

their attention.'

Though Paul's spirit was moved at seeing this city, so celebrated for science and learning, given up to idolatry, we think with Mr. B. that he was too expert an orator to begin his speech by bluntly telling them that they were "too superstitious:" the phrase deioidanovereços was not used by him in an ill sense, but was chosen as an apparent compliment to the Athenians for their religious reverence of the gods; while the proof which he adduces of this reverence affords him an opportunity of attacking idolatry, by revealing to them the knowlege of the only true God and of his Son Jesus Christ. In this view, there can not be a more excellent piece of oratory. The quotations which the Apostle introduces were also well-timed; since they convinced his audience, while he preached Jesus and the Resurrection, that he was not ignorant of Grecian literature.

The observation made on the Apostle, that he seemed to be "a setter-forth of strange gods, because he preached Jesus and the Resurrection," has induced some to believe that the Athenians took Avarasis for the name of a God: but they must have given little attention to his doctrine, if they fell into this error. Though they employed the plural καινων δαιμονίων, they might only mean to accuse him of adding one to the number; and the mocking of some, when they heard of "the resurrection of the dead," does not countenance the supposition that the Apostle's Avararis was mistaken for a Deity. Idle rumour, however, might have occasioned such a misapprehension.

In the Essay on the Song of Solomon, Mr. B. espouses the notion that it is a mystical, allegorical pastoral. From the occurrence of similar amatory expressions in the Ελενης Επιθαλαos, he supposes that the Grecian poets borrowed from it ; not considering that Love, being the same in all nations, must inspire an uniformity of sentiment. We admit with Mr. B. that

ודית erroneously printed) שיר ידידת the whole is properly

) a song of Loves; and that we may say throughout the poem, as in the Cestus of Venus, II. E.

ES

Ενθ' ενι μεν φιλότης, εν δ' έμερος, εν δ' οαρίςυς : but, after such a representation, we are not prepared for Mr. B.'s comments and spiritual applications. He, with others, con-siders this poem as divided into seven distincts parts, and thinks that it was composed in honour of Solomon's marriage with Pharaoh's daughter. The first of these opinions is very lamely supported; and the latter, in our judgment, is fully proved to be erroneous by Mr. Good, in his late publication on the Song of Solomon *.

The remainder of these volumes consists of four Sermons. In the first, on the wisdom of God displayed in the series of divine dispensations, the preacher informs us that Christ did not go and preach to the spirits in prison in his own person, but in the person of Noah;' in the 2d, he comments on the doctrine of the General Judgment; in the 3d, he strenuously maintains the tenet of Everlasting Punishment, undertaking to answer all objections to it but he performs his task so very unsatisfactorily, that he concludes with offering 'it as his firm belief that God will not punish any one more than is consistent with infinite wisdom and infinite mercy,' In the last discourse, we are assured that there is a relation between water and life,' and then we are aukwardly exhorted to charity.

On the whole, we have perused Mr. Bingham's works with more surprize than satisfaction. He displays much learning, but in general it is learning without light. As a commentator on Scripture, he appears to want a clear and discriminating mind; and in order to serve his hypothesis, he often takes things for granted which require to be proved. Though we question not his attainments as a biblical scholar, we cannot suffer his pedantry in making references to the books of the O. T. by their Hebrew titles, to pass without notice: Genesis is quoted as the ', of Moses; we are requested to compare Apoc. iii. 20. with chap. v. 2. (meaning Solomon's Song) and . D 7 xxii. 10. with the parallel place in . xi. 1. (meaning 2 Chron. xxii. 10. with 2 Kings xi. 1.) In many places, the Hebrew citations are incorrect; for which, perhaps, the Editor, and not the Author, is accountable.

See Rev. Vol. xlvii. N. S. p. 300.

ART.

ART. VI. A Treatise on Febrile Diseases, including Intermitting, Remitting, and Continued Fevers; Eruptive Fevers; Inflammations; Hemorrhages; and the Profluvia; in which an Attempt is made to present, at one View, whatever, in the present State of Medicine, it is requisite for the Physician to know respecting the Symptoms, Causes, and Cure of those Diseases; with Experimental Essays, on certain Febrile Symptoms, on the Nature of Inflammation, and on the Manner in which Opium and Tobacco act on the Living Animal Body. By A. Philips Wilson, M.D. F.R.S. Ed. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, &c. Vol. IV. 8vo. PP. 740. 93. Boards. Printed at Winchester. London. Cadell and Davies.

WE E announced some time ago the commencement of Dr. Wilson's undertaking*; the 2d and 3d Volumes we were not able to procure: but we now present our readers with an account of the 4th, by which the work is concluded. Having already gone through the diseases classed by Dr. Cullen under the heads of Pyrexia and Exanthemata, and a part of the Phlegmasia, the author now proceeds with the remainder of this class, beginning with the consideration of the cynanche trachealis. He divides the disease into two varieties, that which we sometimes meet with in adults, and that which attacks children from the time they are weaned until about 12 years of age:' but, as It appears that the age of the patient is the only circumstance by which these varieties are to be distinguished, we must regard this division as altogether unnecessary and improper. The symptoms of croup at its commencement are well delineated, and its fatal and rapid progress is traced with accuracy and precision. A disease has been described under the title of the acute asthma, which in some of its prominent features strongly resembles the cynanche trachealis, but which has been considered by others as an entirely different disease. The question is of some practical importance; and those writers, who have conceived that the diseases are not identical, have taken much pains to point out a sufficiently accurate diagnosis between them. After all, however, the point remains undecided; Michaelis and Rush regard the diseases as different, and Dr. Wilson appears to incline to their opinion; while Cullen, notwithstanding his accuracy of observation, was not able to distinguish them from each other. Dr.W. seems to suppose that the membrane, which in true croup is found lining the inside of the trachea, does not exist in the acute asthma: but at the same time he remarks that the presence of this membrane is not essentially connected with the characteristic symptoms of the disease, even when

See Rev. Vol, xxxi. N. S. p. 41.

existing